I've followed the gme saga off and on for the past few months, I've never once seen the theory debunked. If this is actually the case, could you post a link to it?
As far as I understand it, the core aspect of an impending “MOASS” is that GME stock is still shorted > 100%, but SI is currently reported at around 15%[0].
In other words, the canonical measure that represents the ratio of uncovered shorts to the float is ... wrong? There are people who are short, but are not short?
From what I got, the majority of the actual short would be hidden in some method of put-call options shenanigans (not sure what it is now, but there was at some point the equivalent of 2 times the float in $<2 puts a year out)
A lot the bigger theories that they preach can't be disproven because they get updated to take into account new facts. For example, the entire MOASS theory (Mother of all short squeezes) is founded on the idea that hedge funds have shorted the entire float of GameStop multiple times over. This theory was created when GME's short interest was over 100%, but now that it's reported to be down around 20%, the theory has evolved and to say that the short interest we see is a lie because hedge funds a in cahoots with data providers as well as selling through dark pools to hide the actual short interest.
The first version of the theory WAS disproved, so the theory evolved to account for that. You see that same pattern over and over with everything the preach right now. If they correctly predict something it's proof that they're on the right track. If they make an incorrect prediction, they just didn't have the right data and they "discover" something new that will make their theory right.
That being said, if you stalk their sub (its my guilty pleasure), there's plenty of small things they get wrong that are easily disproven. They love to talk about GME's price movement being unique (GME went up 11% today on no news), but it tends to move in tandem with plenty of other speculative stocks, which they ignore. They love to talk about how the reverse repo update that gets posted every day is a sign that they're on the right track even when the first post that brought that data to their sub claimed it wasn't definitive proof of anything, just a weird thing that was happening.
I think the icing on the cake is the one guy from Florida who is a member of their sub who sued GameStop in an effort to get more information. When they held a stockholder vote sometime in 2021 there were 8 different items to vote on and the total number of shares added up differently in one of the votes. In the last vote, if you add up all the yes and no votes, there was one additional vote. GameStop claimed that the difference was because of rounding fractional share votes, but the guy claimed it was proof of naked shorting, so he sued. GameStop's own lawyers said the guy said there was no proof of naked shorting and that the lawsuit was frivolous and are asking the judge to dismiss the case with prejudice and have the guy pay their legal fees.
It's not debunked at all. You have to remember that this is the same corruption level that had the 'buy' command (but not 'sell') turned off just for that stock for a day on RH -- and no one went to jail.
There is growing pressure as more and more investors DRS their shares to push back, so we'll see more articles like the one above, convincing us that the short squeeze is over, trying to convince people to sell. Because once 100% of shares are registered, it's all over.
> once 100% of shares are registered, it's all over.
IF you can extrapolate the rising trend all the way to 100%, then shorting would be quite a bit more difficult for most market participants. But the fact that some investor have DRSed their shares does not mean all the rest will, too. You might equally ask that if it would be so beneficial for shareholders to do this, why haven't all shareholders done it already?
As someone without any direct interest in the whole saga (neither short nor long), it sure looks like the whole thing has been over for at least six months.
> it sure looks like the whole thing has been over for at least six months
I think for passive spectators it may feel that way. For those people in it (and I was in WSB from before this started), it's absolutely right in the middle of the action. They has a steady march of registering shares for months and it's not letting up.
The more that directly register their shares, the smaller the pool to manage the price. It doesn't have to hit 100% for there to be an effect. But if it ever does hit 100%, wow.
Admittedly I am not sure that's directly related to the theory being referenced by you and OP as I am hazy on all the historical discussions.